Key Takeaways

• Global climate-focused fundraising increased by 20%, driven by resilient investor interest even amid regional slowdowns.
• Over half of low-carbon technologies have achieved cost competitiveness in many markets.
• Eight main climate solution areas are capturing investor interest, including energy supply, carbon management, and risk/resilience categories.
• Stationary storage, energy-efficiency services, biofuels, waste-to-energy, and electricity grids are seen as system enablers attracting converging capital and policy focus.

Recent headlines have suggested a downturn in climate investment. The reality, however, is more nuanced.

While parts of North America have seen slower momentum, global climate investment activity continues to grow, with Europe and Asia leading in both capital deployment and innovation scale. Rather than signalling retreat, the data suggests a geographic and thematic rebalancing of where capital is flowing and how investors are assessing risk and opportunity.

For Canada, this shift should be taken seriously.

As ClimateDoor CEO Chad Rickaby, MPP notes,
“Canada’s reluctance to invest in bold ventures is holding us back from becoming a true global innovation hub.”

Canada has the ingredients to become a leader in climate technology commercialization. What remains uncertain is whether investment appetite and policy alignment will keep pace with that potential.

Capital Is Still Moving, and Growing

According to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), global climate-focused fundraising increased by 20% over the past year, despite macroeconomic uncertainty and policy volatility.

Institutional capital is also scaling up. CalPERS, one of the world’s largest pension funds, expanded its climate allocation to $100 billion, targeting investments focused on mitigation, adaptation, and transition. These commitments signal confidence not only in climate solutions but in their long-term financial relevance.

The question, then, is not whether climate investing is continuing, but why it remains resilient.

What’s Sustaining Climate Investment Momentum?

BCG’s analysis points to three structural drivers shaping today’s climate investment landscape:

1. Technology maturity

More than half of low-carbon technologies are now cost-competitive in most markets, with many others approaching parity. What was once viewed as “early-stage” has, in many cases, become deployable at scale.

2. Diversifying opportunity sets

Climate investment has expanded well beyond decarbonization alone. Capital is increasingly flowing into circular economy models, adaptation measures, and resilience infrastructure, reflecting a broader understanding of systemic climate risk.

3. Financial performance

BCG’s analysis shows that companies pursuing green growth strategies between 2016 and 2024 consistently achieved stronger revenue multiples than peers that did not. Climate alignment is no longer seen solely as a cost; it is increasingly viewed as a driver of competitive advantage.

Together, these factors help explain why climate investment continues to attract capital, even as regional dynamics shift.

Where Investors Are Placing Their Bets

In its report “Sustaining the Private Capital Opportunity in Climate,” BCG identifies eight segments currently attracting the most investor attention:

• Energy Supply & Optimization
• Industrial & Buildings
• Transportation & Mobility
• Food, Agriculture & Land Use
• Carbon & Methane Management
• Circularity & Waste Management
• Financial & Enabling Solutions
• Climate Risk, Adaptation & Resilience

Opportunities within these segments vary depending on investor profile, particularly between infrastructure investors and private equity, as interest rate expectations continue to influence capital strategies.

Five Areas Where Conviction Is Converging

Across these segments, five areas stand out where capital, policy, and system-level need intersect most clearly:

• Stationary energy storage solutions and service providers
  Enabling grid flexibility, reliability, and the integration of variable renewables.
• Energy contracting and Energy-Efficiency-as-a-Service models
  Reducing upfront risk while accelerating deployment across buildings and industry.
• Biofuels
  Particularly where feedstock supply and offtake economics are well-established.
• Waste-to-energy systems
  Addressing emissions reduction and resource efficiency simultaneously.
• Electricity grids
  The foundational infrastructure required to scale every other climate solution.

These are not short-term trends. They are system enablers, essential to unlocking capacity, managing variability, and enabling climate solutions to scale across sectors and geographies.

The Strategic Implication

The next phase of climate investment will not be defined by isolated technologies, but by how well solutions integrate into broader energy, industrial, and economic systems.

For Canada, the opportunity remains significant, but time-sensitive. Capital is moving. The question is whether domestic investment and policy frameworks will move with it.

At ClimateDoor, we believe that understanding how these pieces connect is what separates incremental progress from transformational outcomes.